Search

Responding to the House of Lords EU Committee’s report on the EU financial regulatory framework, published today, Chris Cummings, Chief Executive of TheCityUK, comments:

The Lords EU Committee’s report on the EU financial regulatory framework recognises that as a result of such a rapid response post-crisis, certain legislative reforms may have been agreed without the usual high standards of consultation and impact assessment.

Clearly the seriousness of the financial and economic crisis required a fast reaction. However, this has meant that no one has had sufficient time to assess the impact of such large scale regulatory reforms on the financial services industry’s ability to effectively support European citizens and businesses. The industry has repeatedly called for a stronger focus on impact assessments and has advocated that the EU Commission tests every proposed measure for its impact on Europe’s international competitiveness. We welcome the commitment by Commissioner Hill to review the cumulative effect of the various reforms and make improvements, particularly where they introduce barriers to, or are inconsistent with, the EU’s ambitious objective of achieving a Capital Markets Union by 2019.

Ensuring that regulation is coherent will enable financial services, a major contributor of economic growth, to unlock capital and create jobs across the EU, a core ambition of the new mandate’s work programme.